App reviews: Apple's Clips, Wordbrain
Clips
Apple has introduced a new app, Clips, which aims to tap into a little bit of Snapchat's social sharing magic. The app lets you take pictures or videos and append your own commentary to them by way of text, narration or goofy stickers.
As with a Snapchat, Facebook or Instagram story, you can string multiple images or videos together into a single, shareable clip.
Clips will automatically type as you talk, making it very easy to add your own text to an image or video.
Users can share their clips over Messages with Apple users, as well as with Android users through SMS.
As with Snapchat, it's possible to add filters to your clips, to give something a drastically different look.
You can also trim or rearrange parts of your creation and add music.
Free, for iOS devices.
Wordbrain
Language lovers with some time on their hands may want to try Wordbrain, a grid-based game that asks you to join tiles together to form particular words. The catch? Even if you land on the right word, you may not get there in the right way.
To form a word, you have to trace your finger over adjacent tiles. If you can't make the right connections to complete both words, it's back to the drawing board for you. The levels start out fairly easy and get progressively harder.
The game does have in-app purchases; players can buy hints if they're just not seeing the letters come together. Playing through the game successfully will let you accrue hints free, but you can pay a little extra if you need help now. Still, it's perfectly possible to play through this engaging word game with nothing but your wits.
Free, for iOS and Android devices.